Acrylic on stretched canvas, ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

This piece has been several different paintings along the way, none quite anything right, none ready to stand on their own.

And each time I worked on it, it became a drastically different painting altogether. It wasn’t a case of layers and iteration and adding and tweaking like it so often is. It was a case of ENTIRELY CHANGING everything about it. It started blue, then was a deep teal green. Then peachy pinks and grassy colours. Then RED. As soon as it was red (surprise surprise) something clicked.

We have so many bird friends in our garden, from the old cockatoo couple who politely look in our windows to let us know they want snacks, to the currawong mama who has just seen off this years babies as grown ups with their own patch.

The wattlebirds here are shy, we only ever spot them in little quicksilver moments as they pause in what they’re doing. I’m more surprised when I see the bounce of a branch and catch one still perched there, or hear the splash of water, to see one still happily having a bath in the pond. It’s much more common to only catch those signs just moments after they’ve left, and see the sweep of feathery grey and flash of gold as they wing away.

So here’s one of those tiny moments, when the wattlebird is still there 🫶🏻